


Sheep, Fish and Three Idiots

by Fairaway_Wars



Series: Superhero Hermitcraft AU [1]
Category: Hermitcraft
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Teeny bit of angst, Violence, also there’s manipulation, how do tags work, much beta reading, superhero au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:14:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24439504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fairaway_Wars/pseuds/Fairaway_Wars
Summary: After his house is destroyed in another battle with supervillians, local superhero Tango moves in with Impulse and Zedaph. Little does he know that his two new friends would change his life for the better.
Series: Superhero Hermitcraft AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1765012
Comments: 14
Kudos: 99





	1. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zloy and Pixl give commentary on a battle. Bad jokes ensue.

"Hello everyone! My name is Pixlriffs," a man with a brown beard and a sleek blue jacket introduced himself. He pointed his thumb to his neighbor, a dark haired man wearing a vest and a loose necktie, "and this is ZloyXP. Today we have another live commentary on the superhermits' battles. One is currently taking place right by Generik Boulevard. We will be watching using our special ConCorp drones. See you there!"

The screen switched over to one of the drones stationed around where the superheroes and villains were battling.

"Already we can see who we have in this episode of chaos, eh?" Zloy commented.

"Yep! On the heroes side of things, we have Sparkfire, Protonder, Eagle Eye, and Exomorph." Pixl observed.

“Joined by the Butcher, Axolotl, Puppeteer, Slumber, and Lucidity on the villains end," Zloy added.

"Sounds like things are about to get sleepy again."

"Exactly, my friend.” The camera switched to another drone on the villains’ side of the group. Puppeteer raised her arms, directing a small army of puppets and dolls to swarm Exomorph. The superhero transformed, changing from his usual green costume and gray mask into a yellow and black Bee costume. He started attacking the puppets as they came at him, stabbing some puppets, cutting them in half or sometimes slamming them to the ground.

“Man, I’m starting to think Exomorph is more of a wasp than a bee. Just look at him.” Pixl commented with a slight chuckle

“Wasps are evil and all, but you know what’s really evil? Murder hornets. Zloy suggested, giggling.

Pixl chuckled, “Murder hornet it is, then.”

While they were talking, Slumber targeted Exomorph with his powers, making him fall to the ground. The prone Bee was swarmed by tiny, yet dangerous puppets.

“And it looks like Exomorph is the first to succumb to Slumber’s Sleepy Beam,” Pixl said.

Sparkfire and Eagle Eye raced to Exomorph while the fire superhero aimed powerful, yet narrow blasts at the puppets already attacking Exomorph, incinerating the cloth puppets. For the rest he used widespread attacks of fire. Eagle Eye was also attempting to destroy the puppets with just his fists and experience in hand to hand combat. The superhero, slightly concerned by the fact he can’t do much, improvised by just stomping on the puppets.

"Sparkfire and Eagle Eye are protecting Exomorph. I always thought of Exo himself being the protector." Zloy commented.

"He's asleep, Zloy."

"And? I can still do crazy things when I sleepwalk.. Exomorph has no excuse." Zloy scoffed lightheartedly

The Butcher seemed to appear out of nowhere, throwing his knife directly at Protonder. The trident-wielding superhero used his trident to reflect it, hitting the knife like a golfer would hit a ball.. The knife flew into one of the bigger puppets, slashing it in half.

"Wow! A hole in one! Or.. a puppet in two?" Pixl chuckled

"Both. What an Eagle. Great move by Protonder," Zloy giggled

"I do hope Eagle Eye isn't too bothered that he was used for a two under par. At least it was for his team."

The Butcher grabbed his knife again and started hacking away at Protonder, but the superhero blocked the attacks with his trident. This continues for five or so attacks before Protonder jumps back and throws his trident at The Butcher. The supervillain, however, managed to move out of the way. Protonder’s trident hit Sparkfire’s hand, disabling it.  
Meanwhile, Eagle Eye was already looking around the battle scene for the supervillains that weren’t currently in battle. He stopped at an alleyway, saying something before the supervillain in the alleyway aimed a lightning strike at Eagle Eye and revealing himself. Xolotl then ran at Eagle Eye and Exomorph, creating a ball of lightning and rolling it over the ground at Eagle Eye like a bowling ball, but it went much quicker. It hit the superhero in the foot, injuring him badly and knocking him to the ground. The attack most likely caused some burns on his foot and charring the costume partially.

“Lightning strike!” Zloy cheered. Pixl laughed in response

Eagle Eye seemed to have had enough and ran away, somewhere. Meanwhile, Sparkfire was still trying to fend off the last of the puppets, but they were much stronger than the first one and could easily resist a few attacks from the weakened hero. The fire superhero fell to his knees, exhausted. The puppets then targeted Exomorph again, clawing at the superhero still in a deep, yet disturbed sleep.

"Looks like the heroes are giving up- but oh! Exomorph is waking up! Can they still get an advantage?" Pixl commented as if he was a football match commentator.

And sure enough, Exomorph stood up rather quickly, fending off the puppets much more aggressively than before. His armour had changed from it's old colours to a blood-red.

"Now he's a murder hornet." Pixl laughed

After a while of 'murder hornet' Exomorph's destruction of multiple puppets, the superhero's attention fell on Sparkfire. However, instead of helping, Exomorph slammed down on Sparkfire, but luckily the latter was able to move out of the way quickly enough. A few words were exchanged, none of which picked up by the drones, but Sparkfire sure seemed startled and confused.

"Top ten anime betrayals, people!" Zloy said, shock edging his voice.

Sparkfire managed to stand up and run out into the street, Exomorph hot on his tail. The hurt, yet enraged superhero caught up with Sparkfire, slamming him through the window of a house. Exomorph jumped in after him.  
The drones picked up on the loud sounds of walls breaking, glass shattering, and many more noises.

"Sounds like some kind of drunken party gone wrong." Zloy said

"Horribly wrong." Pixl commented.  
"Though you could call it more of a drunken costume party."  
Zloy laughed in response, it drawing out into a 'my god, why…' sound.

Exomorph suddenly broke out of the house again, without Sparkfire. The superhero then focused his attention on the still-fighting Butcher and Protonder, who were in a close battle where they seemed evenly matched. Exomorph ran at Protonder, stabbing his drill at the other superhero. The Butcher took a backseat, having a small break to catch his breath. 

A few strikes later another superhero came through a portal, elegantly walking out and clearing his throat. Exomorph gave a quick glance but continued going after Protonder before slowly calming down and falling to the ground, still heavily bleeding. 

The supervillains that were still in the race were watching the scene unfold. Puppeteer had already grabbed some popcorn, Xolotl stole from Puppeteer, the Butcher was confused, and Slumber and Lucidity were also just watching.

The superhero that just came on scene seemed to apologize and talk to Protonder for a bit before walking through another portal.

Protonder stood alone, hurt. The villains were smirking at him, and the superhero didn't seem to want to deal with them on his own, so he turned around and walked through the portal, immediately closing right after.

The camera cut to Zloy and Pixl's studio again, where both sat with shocked yet amused expressions as Pixl prepared to speak again.

"I guess that's it for tonight. The heroes lost in a fair-turned-unfair fight. What will happen next? Will Exomorph go all red and crazy again, who knows?" 

"I predict he'll be worse than a murder hornet," Zloy said

"Like what?"

“Huh?”

“What’s worse then a murder hornet?”

"ZombieCleo," Zloy narrowed his eyes, staring directly at the camera for about two seconds with a completely serious face before both hosts fell into a bout of laughter.

"Alright! That's it! Cut!" Zloy, half laughing, got up from his seat.  
"Back to scheduled programming?"

"We don't even have a schedule after the live commentaries." Pixl chuckled.

"I… alright just! Play something else!"

The screen cut to black, before playing an episode of a game show.


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tango moves in with Impulse and Zedaph. They chat and show Tango around

Tango stood outside, setting his rather large bag on the ground. The blonde was looking at his house. The previous night it had been destroyed in a big fight, but Tango didn’t want to think about that. The man felt many emotions about it, though. From grief to hatred to guilt. He reached for his pocket, pulling out a phone, turning it on and typing in a few buttons.

‘Let’s see…’ He thought.

He held the phone to his ear, flinching slightly when the phone rang directly into his ear.

“Hello, Tinfoil Chef here.” A gruff, older-sounding voice came through the device.

“Hey, TFC, Tango here. I, uh, need your help.”

“Oh, what for?”

“Do you, by any chance, know a place somewhere I can stay? My house was destroyed last night.” Tango examined the bruises on his arm. 

“Ah, superhero stuff again? Alright, let me check.”

“Thanks.”

A few moments passed before TFC spoke again.

“Two people are looking for a housemate after someone else moved out. It’s right on Slipgate Plaza nearby the local news station. If I’m correct… number 12. I’ll call them to let them know you're coming, alright? I'll have to convince them first, of course, but they're nice people so I'm sure they'll let you in."

"That's perfect, actually. Let them know I'll be there in a bit."

"I'll do that. Have a great day." 

"You too" 

The phone call ended there.

'Well, guess I'm off. Where was Slipgate Plaza again? Close to the news station, didn't he say that?'

Tango picked his bag up. It had all the belongings one could fit inside a bag. The blonde paused for a moment, putting his phone back into his pocket, and headed the direction of the news station. He'll figure out the rest when he gets there.

After about 15 minutes of walking and looking at street names, he finally saw one that read ‘Slipgate Plaza.’ He shrugged and started walking down the street. The street was more of a plaza-type thing, as the name suggests, with houses attached to one another. The houses were all two stories, sometimes three, each with a small front yard. They were all surrounding a small field of grass where kids were playing football. Tango smiled, before looking at the number plates on the houses before stopping at number 12. He took a deep breath before walking down the small, tiled path up to the door. Tango knocked on the door.

A few seconds later the door opened, revealing another man standing there. He was blonde, had purple-ish eyes and was wearing a brown vest and blue jeans.   
“Hello! I was told you’re our new housemate! I’m Zedaph, and you are?”

“I’m Tango, nice to meet you.”

The two quickly shook hands before Zedaph stepped back and made an inviting gesture. “Come in.”

Tango stepped inside. He took a quick look around the hallway leading up to the rest of the house and set his bag down. "Thanks for letting me in on such a short notice." Tango smiled at Zedaph.

"Oh, it's no problem. We love having people around."

Then, a person with brown hair, a black shirt with a yellow lowercase 'i' imprinted on it, peeked around a corner and quickly went over to greet their new housemate.  
"Hello, my name is Impulse, what about yours?" He shook Tango's hand.

"I'm Tango, nice to meet you!"

"Nice to meet you too! Want anything to drink before we show you around?"

Tango shook his head. "No thank you."

"Alright, then, let's get you a house tour. Come on!" 

Impulse walked through the door separating the living room from the hallway. "Here's the living room and over there," Impulse pointed at a corner in the room "is the kitchen. Usually we just hang out here. General living room stuff, you know.”

"That's fair." Tango shrugged.

“Also, these are our fish,” Impulse walked to a big tank positioned against one of the walls of the house. “The white one is Blanket, it’s Zed’s fish. The black and white one is Taara, my fish.” The brown-haired man smiled.

"Alright, follow me!" Zedaph chimed in, walking backwards through the door and up the stairs. Tango followed Zedaph upstairs, where a few smaller rooms met him. The other blonde was standing in one of the doorways. "This is going to be your room! You can go off as long as you don't paint or use nails for anything. This is a rented house so we can't change anything permanently." 

"I see. I'll figure out what I want to do here later, I guess."

Zedaph quickly moved to the other doors, opening them for Tango to look through.  
“This is Impy’s room! You can’t go in, though, he likes his privacy.” Tango shrugged in response.

“And this,” Zedaph pointed to another, smaller room “is mine. And the bathroom is over here.” The other blonde opened the door next to his room.

“Alright, I’ll try to remember.” Tango smiled.

The blonde set his bag on the bed, opening it up. He took out all the clothes and put them in the closet. Then he took out a few other things he managed to save from his ruined home. At last, on the bottom of his bag he took out his steel helmet. It was dented in a few places because of the night before. And all of the times he fought in battles. He shrugged, grabbing the rest of his costume and putting it in the back of his closet, hidden behind all his other clothes. Tango picked up his empty bag again, putting it on the ground and shoving it under the bed for later use. The man stepped back, took a look around the room, looked content, and turned around and walked out the door of his room.


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ZIT goes to a café and bond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, I totally didn’t forget about this. But here we go, chapter two’s here

Tango walked down the stairs groggily, having just woken up. When he got downstairs, he saw Zed with a sandwich watching TV.  
“Hey Zedaph.” Tango greeted  
“Hi Tango! Sit down here, if you want. My favourite cartoon’s about to start.”  
“Ah, which one?”   
“Sh-shaun the sheep” Zed smiled innocently.  
“I like that cartoon too” Tango smiled back, sitting down on the couch next to his new housemate. “Where’s Impulse?”  
“Oh, he’s out... doing electrician stuff.” Zed answered, eyes focused on the TV screen.  
“Ah, cool.”

The house seemed to shake with a rumbling lightning strike, and by the sound of it, it was quite closeby. Tango was startled, but Zed didn’t seem to mind.  
“Should I… check it out?” Tango asked  
“Nah. This happens more often than not.”   
“Oh, alright”  
Tango frowned, getting up and walking towards the window in the kitchen. Protonder and Xolotl were fighting right outside the door. The former seemed to be losing, and there didn’t seem to be any other hero nearby. He decided against joining in, but he grabbed his phone and texted Variant.

He closed his phone again, putting it back in his pocket. Tango looked out the window again. Xolotl was hurt, so was Protonder, but Xolotl held the superhero’s trident in his hand and Protonder to the ground with his feet. He felt guilty for not joining in the fray, but he wanted some rest after the happenings from two days ago. He shook his head, walking back to the couch where Zed was still focused on Shaun the Sheep.

“When Impulse gets back we were wanting to go out for a drink, do you want to come with us?” Zedaph asked  
Tango thought for a few seconds before answering with a quick “Yeah, sure!”  
“Alright! We’ve already got a place in mind. It’s not too far and it’s called Five Goats.”  
“Oh, yeah! That place. I heard they have great goat milk”  
Zed laughed. “Yeah, haha, I bet they do.”

By now blasts, tridents and lightning bolts were heard coming from the front of the house. The lightning sounds were getting softer by the strike, probably meaning Xolotl was losing. ‘Good.’ Tango thought, relaxing. 

About half an hour and five Shaun the Sheep episodes later, the front door was heard opening and closing. “Ah, that must be Impulse.”   
Sure enough, Impulse came through the hallway door, looking dishevelled but normal enough. Tango was slightly concerned, but Zed didn’t seem to pay attention to Impulse’s state. “Hey! Glad you’re back! How’d your job go?” Zedaph asked  
“Oh, it went fine. It was stubborn but I managed to make it work eventually.” Impulse responded, combing his hair down with his fingernails  
“Good to hear! Do we want to go grab something to drink now or do we want to wait a bit?”  
“I’m fine with going now.” Impulse answered, looking at Tango.  
“I’m okay with that.” Tango nodded  
“Alright, let’s go then!” Zedaph stood up, turning off the tv, which was playing something else than Shaun the Sheep by now, anyways.

A few minutes of walking later, they stood before the ‘Five Goats’ café. Impulse opened the door with an ‘after you’ gesture and went in after Zedaph and Tango.   
The white tiled walls had red goat stickers in a checkered pattern, about two stickers tall. The café wasn’t crowded, as far as Tango could tell there were about ten people.  
“Two teas, english breakfast and green lemon, and one cappuccino, please!” Zed said, sliding a few coins over the counter.  
The barista nodded. “Coming right up!” She wrote the order on a piece of paper and started working on the order. 

“...went BOOM!” A familiar voice spoke from the cafeteria entrance. It was Protonder. With him were Variant and Crystallex. They had just entered the café. Protonder walked up to the barista and held up three fingers while saying something in a german accent that Tango still can’t understand quite that well. Tango looked over at Zed and Impulse, the former was obliviously staring away from the heroes while Impulse was glaring at them. The blonde didn’t think much of it, plenty of heroes had accidentally hurt people before, including him.

By now, the barista had finished their drinks, so Tango and Zed picked them up while Impulse found a table, about as far away from the superheroes as you could go. The trio sat down. Tango looked at his tea, stirring it for no particular reason. He looked up, seeing the superheroes come their direction. They sat down at a table closeby, making him be able to secretly eavesdrop on them.  
“Yeah, he had me! He had me good, stealing my trident like that, sneaky guy, that one.” Protonder said, taking a sip from his coffee.  
“And then I showed up and gave him a real scare. He managed to land a blow on me. Though, luckily Protonder had my back there.” The shapeshifter, now looking like a werewolf, smiled.  
“Managed to take my trident back, at least.”  
“I even managed to hold him down for a bit before he blasted my face with lightning” Variant bragged before looking away, seemingly disappointed in himself.  
“And then he ran for it! Probably realized he couldn’t take on the both of us” Protonder slammed his cup on the table, grinning

Tango was looking at Zedaph and Impulse. Impulse was staring out the window at the road and people walking, while Zedaph was staring into his tea. Tango felt the need to stay silent so his colleagues, who were within earshot, could not recognize his voice and manage to give away his identity. He didn’t want that to happen.

Zedaph was first to strike up a conversation with Tango.  
“So, uh,” Zed cast a quick glance at the superheroes “what do you do for a living?”  
“Oh, well, I’m a chef in a nearby restaurant.” Tango answered. He could notice the superheroes looking at him. They probably recognized his voice, but he pretended not to notice. “And you… you still seem oddly familiar. Don’t you do that game sh-“  
“Shh- no need to say that out loud.” Zedaph smiled. “You know, I was running out of ideas for my game show. Maybe you had ideas for next Friday?” Zedaph looked expectantly at the other two at the table.  
“Oh… uhh. What if…” Tango cast a glance at the superheroes “...the theme was superheroes? I dunno, something like that.” He suggested.  
Zedaph’s eyes lit up. “And maybe you two could be contestants? Would you be okay with that?”  
Tango nodded. “Yeah! I like that.” Zedaph looked over at Impulse.  
“Oh, me? Yeah, sure,” Impulse continued to look out the window.  
“Good! I’ll get this all worked out, then. I’ll have to get one more person, though, but I’m sure I’ll figure something out.” Zed responded, taking a sip of his tea.

Tango let his mind wander back to listening in on the heroes’ conversation.   
“You know, those two are a strange duo” Variant said, sitting back into the chair after setting his cup on the table.  
“What, Xolotl and Polterguy?” Crystallex looked at Variant. “I can see why you think that.”  
“Just look at them. One’s a furry and one’s dressed up for halloween.” Protonder smiled. Variant shot him a look.  
“And what’s so bad about furries?” The shapeshifter, disguised as a werewolf asked.  
“Oh, haha, nothing.”   
Variant shook his head, half-smiling, half-frowning.  
“So yeah, why do you think Xolotl was alone today? Usually the duo’s together.” Crystallex changed the topic quickly.  
“I don’t know, maybe Polterguy was out trick-or-treating?” The trident-wielding superhero leaned on the table and muttered something Tango couldn’t understand.

Tango looked at the guys in front of him again. Zedaph was trying to keep in his laughter and Impulse was shaking his head, as if he was disappointed. Seemed like he wasn’t the only one eavesdropping. He noted that their cups were empty, so he took the last sip of his cup. “So, are you three ready to go back?” Tango asked.  
“Oh, sure!” Zedaph nodded.   
“I am, too.” Impulse responded, standing up and grabbing his empty cup. “Shall we, then?”   
The other two stood up as well. Tango looked at the superheroes one more time before following the others out of the café.


	4. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ZIT visits Hypno for some private business and Xolotl gets an assignment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've managed to procrastinate even more! Woo! Thanks to my fellow writers for beta'ing everything I'm toi dumb for my own good.

CHAPTER 3  
It was a Monday, Impulse was free from his job, so he decided to get his other responsibilities over with. This included paying a visit to a fellow villain. He had wanted to go out alone, but both Zedaph and Tango had insisted they came with him and Impulse couldn’t say ‘no’. Guess he couldn't discuss important villain business in private. Zedaph needed a third person for the game show anyways.

The ZIT trio stood before the door to an apartment, barely fitting in the narrow hallway. Impulse had knocked on the door and within seconds there stood a man, looking tired, and a bandana tied around his head.

“Come on in.” Hypno said, looking at Tango for a while with a slightly confused face. “Who’s this? Is he... new?”

“Oh, Hypno, this is Tango! He’s our new housemate. Tango, this is Hypno, a friend of ours.” Zedaph said.

Tango held out a hand and Hypno shook it. “Nice to meet you, Hypno!” Tango smiled

“Nice to meet you, too.” Hypno responded.

“Now, can I get you something to drink?” He said as he walked into the rest of his apartment, setting his cup down on the coffee table near his couch.  
Impulse shook his head. Zedaph and Tango stayed silent. 

“Alright, make yourselves comfortable.” Hypno sat down on the couch.

The small apartment was barely large enough for four people to stay in at once, but they managed it anyway. It had a couch on the left side, which had a window overlooking the streets down below. On the right side there was a dinner table and an open kitchen. It was not the cleanest place Impulse had seen, but it also wasn't the grossest. It mostly had a lot of wires, papers and more laying around.

The trio went and sat down on the couch as well. Hypno started the  
conversation. “So, what brings you here?” 

“Oh, well I actually wanted to ask you something.” Zedaph smiled, looking at Impulse and Tango before looking at Hypno again. 

“Would you like to take part in my game show?”

Hypno hesitated for a moment. “No, sorry. But thanks.”

“Oh… alright.” Zedaph looked disappointed, before looking at Impulse again. Impulse stood up suddenly as if he remembered something.

“I have to talk to you two,” he looked at Tango for a second “in private.”

Tango didn't seem that happy with this, but he agreed to leave the room for a bit so the other three could talk in private, although Impulse noticed a suspicious glance coming from him as he did.

“So, what’d you wanna talk about, eh?” Hypno sat back on the couch, yawning.

“Yeah, Khufu told me to relay a message to you. He’s got another job for you.” Impulse handed Hypno a paper. Hypno grabbed and scanned it. He hummed a bit when he saw the name.

“Ah, Slime Slinger-slash-Jevin? I hope he realizes I charge more for heroes, right?”

Impulse looked at him with an annoyed expression. “Of course he does. Contact me when you’re done, eh?”

Hypno shrugged, walking over to a drawer in his desk and putting the paper in. “I’ll get to work on that, then. Anything else we need to talk about?”

Impulse shook his head. 

"How's it going with your… Sparkfire situation?" Zedaph asked, doing an arm motion that looked like he was holding a microphone to Hypno. 

"Oh, him? He's so stubborn. Manages to get away from me before I can even get close. He deserves all the suffering he's going to get." Hypno said, his eyes narrowing as he looked out the window right by the couch. 

"Oh, please don't go on your 'he killed Jess' rant," Impulse complained, his arms crossing, "we've heard that so many times."  
Hypno glared at him. "Fine. But I'm not letting him forget."

'Why didn't I just come alone.' Impulse sighed, his eyes drifting to the view out the window.

Zedaph sighed. "Are we done with villain talk? We've got a Tango we left outside."  
Hypno shrugged, Impulse nodded. "I'll let him in."

Impulse opened the door to find Tango leaning against the wall and seemingly texting. "Sorry we forced you out, we had some personal matters we needed to discuss." He apologized, gesturing Tango inside.

The blonde smiled. "It's fine, I can respect that." 

—

Xolotl looked at Khufu. His golden, Egyptian mask and other accessories seemed to glow in the darkness of the secret lab the villains called their meeting place. It was well-kept, probably because Khufu seemed very protective of it and usually had other villains clean the lab up. 

“So, what do you need me for?” Xolotl asked, his voice hinting at his slight nervousness and fear.   
“What I need you for is Exomorph. Or,” Khufu paused dramatically “more specifically... Evil Exomorph. I need you, right now, to try and get him. Quill seems to be able to calm him down, so we need him out of the way as well. I’ve already contacted some other villains to help you out. They should be here at any moment.” Khufu was pacing around the room as if he was deep in thought. He stopped before turning to the exit door. Sure enough, four other villains bursted through at that exact moment, each looking different than the other. 

The first was Slumber, who, even through his mask, was visibly sleep-deprived but held it together for now. Xolotl chuckled at the sight. “Seems like Slumber isn’t very fond of his name.” Slumber seemed to have opened the door, but was stormed by the second almost falling down on him. That person was Lucidity. He was more energetic than Slumber, to say the least. He was dragging the third villain along, Puppeteer. She seemed unmotivated and grumpy at first but willing to get into the mischief she heard about from Khufu. In the back, the Butcher was staring at the aforementioned three villains, visibly confused. He sighed, grabbing a pencil out of his pocket, which immediately turned into a big butcher’s knife. 

Xolotl shook his head in a disappointed way, glaring at his four co-workers. He looked at Khufu. “So, what’s the plan?”. “Alright, the plan, very important.” Khufu nodded, walking to a table which had a map of the city on it. There was a knife stabbed into the table right on a shopping street which Xolotl knew would be crowded at this time of day. He looked over at the other villains, before looking back at Khufu. He knew that the plan sharing was going to take a while, so he made himself comfortable on a chair.

—

“Is this very clear?” Khufu finished his speech. His voice was commanding and powerful, something that could make many people listen to him. The group of villains nodded. “You too, Slumber?” The villain mentioned nodded hastily. He had already grabbed and finished a cup of coffee by the time Khufu finished telling his plan. “Well what are you waiting for? Go!” The other four villains walked out the exit, but Xolotl was stopped. “If you don’t bring him back, you’re in big trouble.” Khufu threatened, his light-blue eyes gleamed threateningly through his mask’s eyeholes. Xolotl nodded in understanding. “I’ll do my best.” 

—

Xolotl and the Butcher stood in a dark alleyway, overlooking the busy street. Although Xolotl felt slightly guilty about attacking a bunch of innocent people, he quickly shook off the thought. Khufu wouldn’t lie to him. He quickly scanned the area thoroughly for any sign of a superhero lying in wait, but couldn’t see anything. “On a lightning strike, go, alright Butcher?” He whispered to the man next to him, who nodded in return. “You three know your cue, right?” Xolotl quickly checked in with the villains standing in the back part of the alleyway, who all nodded. Xolotl nodded back, hurrying back to where the Butcher was standing. He took a deep breath, feeling lightning rush through his body and culminate in the palm of his hand. He counted from three to one in his head before letting the electricity release into the street. 

Immediately screams, shouts and cries were heard coming from the people in the crowd. He could see people running, taking out their phones to record or call the police or freezing in place. He saw the Butcher run out before him, swinging his knife around threateningly. Xolotl decided to run out as well, aiming a lightning slash at the few people that were frozen, recording or just standing there. It was chaotic, a horrific sight for anyone that was new to the place. Xolotl didn’t understand why people even stayed in this city with an ever looming threat of villains. He shrugged before he heard a scream from the Butcher. “Heroes at nine o’ clock!”

Sure enough, four heroes were gathered. One, who Xolotl recognized as Quill, was calming down people who were frozen in place or just downright terrified. The other three were already aiming attacks. Most importantly, Exomorph. Although the hero seemed hesitant and unsure in his movements, he still showed up. Perhaps scared Evil Exomorph would show up again? The other two were Protonder and Sparkfire, luckily not as important... but they were dangerous. 

Xolotl aimed for Quill, who was already far enough away from the crowd by now and could safely dodge without the lightning striking the fleeing people. The supervillain frowned, though not visible to anyone. He created a lightning shield to block Sparkfire’s fire. Xolotl shot his shield off to Quill. It hit, and he fell backwards. Sparkfire had aimed a fireball at him. Xolotl redirected it at Quill by batting it with a sword-shaped lightning bolt. It hit Quill again. It didn’t seem like the superhero was used to being attacked much. ‘Good, makes it easier for us.’ Xolotl thought, his mind thinking back to Khufu’s plan. 

He made a run for it, swapping places with the Butcher so Xolotl could go after Exomorph. The supervillain aimed a ball of lightning at the hero in his turtle form. He knew he couldn’t do as much to Exomorph in turtle form as he could in the bee form, so he decided to play the longer game and stall him out. The supervillain used his electric powers to create a rope and lasso the superhero, keeping him in place. Meanwhile, Puppeteer had already appeared with her puppets. They were making slow progress hacking away at the turtle Exomorph, but progress nonetheless.

When Xolotl released Exomorph, the superhero had his armor change into its Bee Form. He was already stabbing the puppets. When suddenly, he felt hot fire just barely reach his back. He took this as a sign of the Butcher being defeated, so he shot two lightning bolts in rapid succession into the sky. Xolotl quickly turned around, being met with his fellow villain gone and Sparkfire shuffling his feet in preparation of an attack. He could see the hero being sleepy, but it didn’t seem like Slumber was awake enough himself to do much. He took a quick look at the alleyway the five villains were standing. He noticed Protonder was beginning to wake up from sleep but both Lucidity and Slumber were hurt. Guess he couldn’t rely on those two now. 

Protonder was staring at him, his trident raised and sparking with lightning. Sparkfire held a bright fireball in his hands. Exomorph was still hacking away at the puppets. Xolotl knew only he and the Puppeteer couldn’t do much against the three heroes at once. He sighed, pushing Sparkfire back with a lightning slash, stepped back and fired a circle of lightning into the air. Puppeteer immediately stopped her small army of puppets. She looked around, running over to Xolotl. “I’m in so much trouble.” Xolotl whispered to Puppeteer, grabbing her by the arm and running for it. He didn’t know what would happen to Slumber or Lucidity, or what did happen to the Butcher, but he ran.


	5. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friends visit friends and more conflicts break out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have no idea how to make chapter summaries

Tango walked up to the door leading to Xisuma and Keralis’ apartment. He knocked, maybe a bit too hard, and stood for a few seconds before it opened. The three were met with a tall man standing in the doorway, just barely fitting through it without having to duck. “Ah, Tango, are these the two you were talking about?”

Tango nodded, looking at his companions. “This is Impulse and this is Zedaph.” 

“You must be Xisuma, right?” Impulse tilted his head, eyes narrowing for a split second before Zedaph interrupted his train of thought. “Nice to meet you!” The blonde said, shaking Xisuma’s hand. “Uh, nice to meet you too. Why don’t you come in?”

The trio followed the tall man inside. Zedaph and Tango were playing an impromptu game of ‘will he hit his head?’ but it seemed like the doorframes were specifically made to allow Xisuma to barely walk under them. 

“Alright, this is the main living room. Please take some chairs from the dinner table, we don’t have much else.” Xisuma introduced the trio to his apartment. 

Then, another man showed up, having just walked through a door. This time not as tall, but his eyes were wide, which made him have a permanently surprised expression. 

“Hey, Keralis! Meet my roommates! Impulse and Zedaph.” Tango smiled.

Keralis smiled back, looking at the other two their friend brought along. Tango swore he saw a flash of recognition in Keralis’ eyes, but he didn’t know if that was Tango's imagination or that the wide-eyed man actually recognized them. “Hello, nice to meet you two!” He smiled, shaking their hands. "I'm Keralis."

The trio dragged the dinner table chairs to where Keralis and Xisuma sat down on the couch. When they were seated, Xisuma started the conversation.

"So, Tango, what did you need from me?" 

"Uh, well, I actually mostly came here because of Zedaph. He needs a third person for his game show and we're going around asking people if they want to join." Tango looked at Zedaph for confirmation, he nodded back.

Xisuma exchanged glances with Keralis. "No, sorry, we're good." The taller man smiled apologetically

“Alright, then.” Zedaph looked away for a second, seemingly deep in thought. About what? Tango didn’t know. “So how is it going with you two? Anything special happen?” Impulse tried to spark a conversation, giving an awkward smile.

Tango felt like this was going to be a while, so he listened to the conversation absent-mindedly, not really paying attention to anything. Instead, he thought about his life as a superhero. He can still vividly remember the night. The night everything changed. They were all happy together before he screwed up. ‘No’ he pushed the thought away. ‘Let’s not think about this now’. 

—

Sparkfire was in the hero base, practicing controlling his fire better. Right now, he could only shoot fire directly, but was now learning to control fire to, for example, follow someone around. He was in the training hall together with Quill before an alarm sounded. Sparkfire turned around, immediately alert. Quill answered the alarm, being met with Variant’s heavy and slightly exhausted voice. “Three villains and White Night.”

“Who are the villains?” Quill asked quickly.

“Xolotl, Polterguy and Puppeteer.” Variant breathed before the audio cut off. Quill had his eyes narrowed, looking at the board of heroes who were available. Only Sparkfire, Quill and Variant were ready, so they just rolled with it.

—

About 5 or so minutes later they arrived at the scene. Variant was bleeding, although not heavily. Xolotl was bleeding, Polterguy was fine, standing next to Xolotl, Puppeteer was laughing as White Night fended the female supervillain’s puppets off. As per usual with him, White Night stood, determined, protecting a boy who had fallen. Quill nodded at Sparkfire, sneakily running through alleyways. Sparkfire opted to run towards Variant, helping him stand up as he silently watched the villains doing their thing.

Before he could reach the other hero, he was interrupted by Polterguy appearing like a ghost in front of him. “Sorry, going some-“   
Sparkfire had hit him in the face with a fireball. “Yeah, I am going somewhere.” He took a few steps before he was again interrupted by a bolt of lightning striking right in front of him. Sparkfire complained internally, just running to help Variant, now not caring if he was hit by anything. He reached his colleague, who seemed tired, but Sparkfire couldn’t tell if that was from before the battle or because of the battle. He didn’t dwell on that too long, as Xolotl aimed another lightning strike at the hero duo. It didn’t hit them directly, it hit the ground instead, but it was definitely felt as the electricity passed through the asphalt ground.

“You okay to fight on?” Sparkfire asked Variant, still keeping an eye on Xolotl.

“Should be fine now.” Variant replied, shaking his head before the werewolf’s ear twitched and threw himself aside. Polterguy had appeared behind the duo, throwing a punch at Variant. The superhero in question didn’t seem too pleased with Polterguy’s attack, so he went after the supervillain.

Meanwhile Sparkfire noticed Quill was helping the boy on the ground as White Night used his metalbending powers to slice Puppeteer’s puppets in half. The boy now ran off down the street as Quill seemed to say something to the anti-villain, who promptly ignored him.

Sparkfire was thrown off watching Quill do his thing as he saw Xolotl aiming another lightning strike at him. He quickly moved out of the way by side stepping and almost stumbling backwards. Xolotl ran closer to him. Sparkfire prepared a ball of fire, but was quickly interrupted by Xolotl destroying it, somehow, with a bolt of lightning. The supervillain walked closer to Sparkfire. Although the superhero couldn’t see what was behind the mask, he could barely notice some hesitation in the supervillain’s movement.

“So.” Xolotl started

“So, what? Trying to spark up a conversation?” Sparkfire chuckled. The supervillain didn’t laugh.

“Where is Exomorph?” Xolotl asked, his voice low and threatening but Tango could pick up an edge of fear through the aztec-style dog mask the supervillain was wearing. 

“He’s not here, are you blind?” Sparkfire answered, rolling his eyes, although that wasn’t visible to Xolotl. 

Xolotl tensed up, and muttered some words he couldn’t quite catch except for a few. “Exomorph... should... retreat.” 

Sparkfire held his fighting pose, feeling his hands warm up. “What’s the matter, can’t handle us three?”

Xolotl looked around. Sparkfire did the same. Puppeteer was gone, White Night was too. Variant and Polterguy were both still fighting, although the latter was clearly losing. Quill was slowly walking back from where he helped the young boy to where Sparkfire was.

“Fine, you win. Not like we wanted you, or anything. Although Slumber does seem like he wants you... but it’s more like he wants you dead than anything else.” Xolotl growled lowly, taking a few steps back, firing a circle of lightning into the air and retreating back into the dark alleyways of the streets.

“Huh, that was the shortest-lived battle I’ve been in.” Quill came up to him. Variant also appeared, still pretty hurt from fighting. The werewolf glared at the two before looking away again. 

“Come on, let’s get back to base, shall we?”


	6. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zedaph and Impulse buy Tango a fish

Tango sat on the couch, watching TV. It was the Sunday recap where Zloy and Pixl were recapping all the important events that happened that week. Right now they were making dumb jokes, so Tango didn't pay much attention. He looked over at the fish tank situated right next to the TV. Blanket and Taara were swimming peacefully, although the latter fish was jumpy around, well, everything and a bit frightful. 

He heard the front door open, being greeted by a 'hello' from Impulse. "Hello back!" Zedaph opened the door with a wide grin on his face. "We have something for you!"

"Oh, really? What is it?"

Impulse walked up to the tank with a bag full of water and… was that a fish? 'Oh my god they bought another fish.' Impulse opened the tank and lowered the plastic bag into the tank. The other two fish inspected it but left it alone while the newcomer tried to get out.

Tango stood up and walked over to the tank, looking at the white and orange fish in the bag. He didn't exactly know what that species of fish was called but he guessed it wasn't a goldfish. His thoughts were interrupted by Impulse. "We got you this fish! It seems like you're going to be staying here a while so we decided to buy you one."

"It's so precious." Tango admired the fish.

"Can you think of a name?" Zedaph asked him as he walked to Tango's side.

"Oh, uh…" His mind didn't come up with anything so he just thought of the next animal he could. "Dog."

Impulse restrained himself from laughing, although that was very visible. "You sure?" Zedaph was already laughing.

"What?! Dog is a perfectly valid name."

"I mean, Zed can't say anything either." Impulse chuckled, glancing over at Zedaph.

Zed was already recovering from laughing at Tango's decision, and he wiped away a tear of joy. "I guess you are right."

After a short while of admiring the new fish, Impulse grabbed a small net next to the fish tank, opening the bag with the fish and gently scooping the fish out the bag and into the tank, letting the fish loose into the tank. "There." Impulse smiled.

"It looks happy to be there." Zedaph looked at Tango.

Tango nodded in agreement. "I'm happy to be here too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no i did NOT forget about this, what do you mean? Anyways, final chapter finally, oops-


End file.
